In English, new words are not formed by this method, yet words are
intoned for certain purposes, chiefly rhetorical. We use the rising
intonation (or inflection, as it is usually called) to indicate that
a question is asked, and various effects are given to speech by the
various intonations of rhetoric. But this process is used in other
languages to form new words with which to express new ideas. In Chinese
eight distinct intonations are found, by the use of which one word may
be made to express eight different ideas, or perhaps it is better to say
that eight words may be made of one.